Grandma Kay’s Sukiyaki Recipe

March 19, 2017

Seeing as how sukiyaki is considered a wintertime meal, it seems fitting that I would share my Grandma’s recipe on the last day before spring. Sukiyaki is a Japanese hot pot dish that consists of meat and vegetables that are slowly simmered in a mirin, soy sauce, and sugar mixture. Along with the meat and vegetables, my Grandma would also add sliced water chestnuts, potatoes, mushrooms and a package of Ichiban noodles. The whole pan would be brought to the center of the dining room table and we would eat everything over a bed of hot rice. My Grandpa enjoyed his in a more traditional sense by cracking a raw egg into a bowl before adding his hot ingredients.

I had emailed myself the measurements and instructions to this sukiyaki recipe a couple Christmases ago when I was made it alongside my Grandma, and I recently discovered the email while doing a massive inbox cleanup. After cooking and posting the end results on Instagram, I received a few comments and requests for the recipe. I get it, nothing is more comforting than a hot pot meal.

My Grandma used to make her sukiyaki recipe all the time when our family visited and it’s a great way to feed a crowd of people without having to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. As a child, I always had a preference for the broccoli, mushrooms and the crunchy water chestnuts. Often it would turn into a family battle on who would get the last broccoli floret or hidden piece of water chestnut (the fastest pair of chopsticks always won). Now that I make sukiyaki myself, I make a point to load up on these favourite items so I don’t have to fight over the last piece of broccoli with my husband.

On the topic of this recipe, I also have a funny story to share about making sukiyaki, one that my Mom still likes to bring up to this day. I was helping her prep supper in the kitchen and she asked me to watch over the sukiyaki while it simmered over the stove. Being the distracted early 20-something that I was at the time, I mindlessly starting stirring everything in the pot, which if you can tell from the photos is a big no-no. We had to spend the remaining cooking time trying to separate all the ingredients again. You live and learn, but of course, I’ve never been able to live that down. 🙂

Thanks to the quick cooking time, Trevor and I have made and eaten sukiyaki a couple times this month for weekday supper. While the photos in this post don’t show meat (I’m not a big meat eater, so I substituted tofu instead), I’ve included the instructions for adding sliced beef in the recipe below.

While this recipe may look like a lot of work, the only hands-on prep involves chopping all the ingredients and then letting everything simmer. One good tip is to chop the potatoes into small bite-sized pieces so that it can cook alongside the broccoli and then everything is ready at the same time.

Ingredients:

Sauce

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup soy sauce*

2-3 tbsp mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)

2 cups water

Directions:

Slice beef and mushrooms into bite-sized pieces and cut tofu and potatoes into small cubes. Arrange the beef, mushrooms, tofu, potatoes, broccoli florets and water chestnuts on a platter and set aside.

In a large bowl or measuring cup, whisk together sugar, soy sauce, mirin, and water. Set aside.

Add 1 tbsp of oil to a large pan and bring to medium heat. Add the sliced beef and gently sear until about 60% cooked. One by one, add the ingredients from the platter to the pan and pour in the sauce. Cover with a lid and let cook for 10-15 minutes until the ingredients are soft and thoroughly cooked.

While the main pan is cooking, bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a small pot and add the Ichiban noodles (discharge the soup mixture). Let cook for 5 minutes, drain the water and add the noodles to the center of the sukiyaki pan during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Once everything is cooked, bring the hot pan to the center of the table to enjoy family-style over a bed of hot rice.

This looks so easy and super delicious! My girlfriends and I go for hot pot often, but now I really want to have a girls night in and we can make this instead!! Thanks for sharing this recipe. Grandma’s recipes are always the best!

Great find! It’s amazing what you can find when you clean out your inbox! I’ve never done hotpot with the family, but I think it’s something they would REALLY enjoy. There are so many names for hotpot…and I didn’t realize sukiyaki was one of them.